[Solved] How to mod an ASUS Rampage V Extreme BIOS?

Unb0rn, with your 2001, using Bios flashback, the LED blinks for only about 4s, and will not post (stuck on 00).
Sylar76’s flash works fine (and takes the normal ~60s) to flash.


Ok, don’t know what I did wrong previously, but now both Unb0rn’s & Sylar76’s flash work fine.
Has anyone else flashed either and have anything to report? All good?

@biship :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

It is fine, that you finally succeeded.

Enjoy the ASUS Rampage V Extreme with updated BIOS modules!
Dieter (alias Fernando)

Sorry if this question is stupid, but what is the difference between Sylar76’s and UnbOrn’s versions? It wasn’t clear to me, which is certainly entirely my fault!

Dave

@jaimed2002 :
Hello Dave,
welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

You can easily verify it yourself, if run the UBU tool with both modded BIOSes.

Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

Right you are, thanks Fernando … I was being lazy, I should know better you guys do more than enough as it is to have slackers like me be to lazy to check it for myself!

Great site BTW, really, really awesome talent around here.

Dave

Hi,

if someone wants to try, here is the 2001 modded bios including the following components :

- SATA OROM/EFI Updated
- LAN OROM/EFI Updated (both Intel & Realtek)
- MEI Firmware Updated
- Uncore Module updated with the one which performs better on DDR4 !!!

On my machine it is working like a charm and I have the same performance of the great 1502 bios.

RAMPAGE-V-EXTREME-ASUS-2001.ZIP (6.31 MB)

Great work! Thanks! How did you manage to replace MEI to the latest version? Is there a guide anywhere? And one more thing, what is “Uncore Module”? Any info on it? Vendor? GUID? It’s interesting) Thanks!



Regarding MEI firmware:

- I’ve opened the original bios file with Coderush’s UEFI Tool and extracted the ME Region as is. Then I’ve downloaded the last 9.1 MEI firmware from station drivers.
- I’ve compared both files using Flash Image Tool (FITC) 9.1 selecting as platform “Intel C610 Series” and matching MEI settings of the new firmware with the ones of the native bios.
- I’ve so compiled the new image with FITC and replaced the ME Region using UEFI Tool and it works flawlessly.

Regarding the Uncore mod.

Since 1902 bios, and also with the 2001 version, Asus changed something in the Uncore/cache settings to improve system stability, but indeed the RAM performance are worse than
the previous bioses. So I compared with MMTool and UEFI Tool the differences between the 1801 bios (for example) and the latest one (2001) and found that the UncoreInitPeim
module is different. You can find it at the following GUID : D71C8BA4-4AF2-4D0D-B1BA-F2409F0C20D3.
I searched this GUID with UEFI Tool on Bios 1801 (it has two identical GUID), extracted it twice and replaced body into 2001 bios and so the resulting file is the 2001 bios with
the memory performance of the 1801.

That’s all.

Hey Sylar76 & @Unb0rn ,

Question for either of you, (@Fernando if you wanna weigh in on the R5E please do),

I am upgrading my primary OS drive from a OCZ Vector150 to a Samsung 950 PRO Series 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V5P512BW) and I will be updating my 1901 BIOS (I believe was Unb0rn’s Mod?) to the one posted by Sylar76 yesterday. During this I will be changing my 2 RAID 0 arrays to a single 6-disk, RAID 5 array.

I have always set up my arrays in the RVE BIOS, under the Advanced Tab / PCH Storage Configuration / Intel RST settings. Is this the best place to be doing this? I’ve noticed there are really 3 ways to setup your RAID with the RVE:

Method 1. BIOS Advanced Mode / Advanced Menu / PCH Storage Configuration / Intel RST settings
Method 2. <Control> + <I> Intel RST Option ROM method
Method 3. BIOS Advanced Mode / <F11> “EZ Tuning Wizard” / RAID Option

Just wanted to know what everyone’s thoughts are on this before I begin this.

Also, does anyone install the ASUS AI Suite??


Thanks,

Erich

@ESausman

Hi, I’ve always used the Method 1 but I don’t use the AI Suite.

New and modded 3008 Bios.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By28-1Y…iew?usp=sharing

Hey Sylar76, thank you as well for your great shares, if I may I would like to ask you some questions.

1. Can you tell us where did you find this BIOS? I do not see it on the official website.

2. You mentioned ASUS’s changes to the Uncore/cache settings, which harmed the system’s RAM performance. How did you measure such a performance discrepancy? I assume the difference should be minimal?

If the performance discrepancy is not minimal, is it not logical to assume that the Uncore/cache update affects mostly your set of RAM modules and that another user could potentially see a performance increase or no performance change even with the ASUS’s new Uncore/cache update?

The only thing that changed for me is that I had to go down from a ratio of x45 All Cores and x45 Min/Max Cache to x44 All Cores and x44 Min/Max Cache. However, before the update, the x45 ratio was not stable in the first place, but it was letting me boot up normally. Now, it does not, is this relevant?

3. Also, can you post a complete update changelog for your BIOS? At least the changes that are not easily identifiable, for example, via UBU.

Thank you in advance.

@Fabulist

I found this bios (3008) taking the 2001 address link and changing the 2001 value with 3008. In other words the new bios has been uploaded on Asus server
though it is not officially visible yet.

I measured RAM performance differences using AIDA64 Memory Benchmark suite test. Those differences are minimal, of course, but there exist.

I’ve got several reports from other users having different DDR4 memory quad-channel kits saying your different performance compared to previos bios versions.

In my own case, with 3008 I can be as stable as with the previous 1801 bios version I used, with the same overclocking settings.

Regarding the changelog, the 3008 official Asus bios offers Broadwell-E as well as new Xeon CPU support. The only thing I added on this bios is to change the native
OROM legacy with Uefi Tool, matching the latest available one. That’s all.

Are you saying you randomly pressed BIOS numbers until you got a valid download? ^.^

In any case, so you did not change the Uncore/cache in this latest BIOS version?

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA2…E-ASUS-3008.zip

(I got this link changing 2001 to 3008).

I did not change any uncore/cache module, as this new bios performs very well.

I tried 3007 myself and got a 404, never tried anything else :slight_smile:

Any idea why they’ve added second EFI IRST Module? One remains with 13.x version and another one has 14.x, the same works for IRST OROM. Also they finally removed Realtek EFI module and updated all network modules(both Gigabit UNDI and OROM CL). And the last thing, it looks like they’ve left an old microcode and added support for additional CPUIDs(Broadwell-E, I suppose). So, it looks like we cannot update CPU Microcode either. Any thoughts?

I don’t see how we cannot update the CPU Microcode, why do you think this is the case? If we target the old modules and follow the same principle as before, we should be able to update the CPU Microcode, no?

Also, I thought Sylar76 updated / removed the modules not ASUS. This is very interesting, I rarely see BIOS getting RAID module updates, and I think this is the first time I ever see a BIOS to get officially cleaned up and have its network modules updated this way. In essence, the same way hard-technical people in this forum would do it.

Maybe some ASUS technician is lurking on this thread?

There was also a clean (RGN) ME firmware for which we only had the dirty (EXTR) until now. I don’t know if you use MEA but if you do and see the “Detected GUID […]” message, then it’s a good idea to extract that GUID with MMTool and check the module with MEA.

Capture.PNG



Usually these GUIDs are used for Recovery purposes and only clean (RGN) are kept there. Just a small hint.

The download link is from Asus support, so it looks like it was their work. About microcode updates, as I understand it-we replace modules as is, not adding anything to them, so replacing this microcode with stock Intel 36 one will drop Broadwell-E support, obviously.
P.S. Looks like they replaced MEI with latest version too.
P.P.S. what should be done with IRST modules? Replace them all with 14.x version or replace only 14.x with the newer ones? I don’t have enough knowledge =)